


midnighter means more than one thing

by iamsolarflare



Series: it's a Fallen London/Minecraft Youtube au [12]
Category: DreamSMP, Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, MCYT/Minecraft Youtube, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mild Memory Issues, Mystery, that's about it whee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27067036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamsolarflare/pseuds/iamsolarflare
Summary: In which the Frostbitten Sleuth puts two and two together, and realizes that he REALLY doesn't like what they add up to. (contains mild spoilers for the DreamSMP's Festival and big mclargehuge spoilers for the Jack-of-Smiles plotline. Takes place roughly midway through INCREDIBLE CASE.)
Relationships: None
Series: it's a Fallen London/Minecraft Youtube au [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717144
Kudos: 9





	midnighter means more than one thing

**Author's Note:**

> hi! if this is NOT your first time seeing FLAU, or if you want to go into this with a good deal more context (ie, what a Seeker is, what a Jack ostensibly is, why is everyone underground, etc), or if you care about spoilers for the main series, I would HIGHLY recommend reading some of the other fics in this series first, most notably INCREDIBLE CASE if you have the time. this fic spoils a good deal of the main plotline that fic is based around, so if you care about twists it might not be the first place to go.
> 
> if this is your first time reading FLAU, especially if you're just here for Frostbyte Freeman and don't give a damn about anything else, this is going to be very confusing (I'm sorry) but I won't stop you. I physically cannot, I'm just words on a screen.
> 
> anyway, here's the usual intro - everyone in this au has Fancy London Names so i'm just gonna. have this little disclaimer at the top of every fic.
> 
> characters appearing/mentioned: Byron "Frost" Friggmann (Frostbyte Freeman), Dream (name currently unchanged), Trevor "Techno" Blaine (Technoblade). Sarc (name unchanged) is mentioned very briefly.

Frost clicks his pen.

He’d woken up early today and found a newspaper. Opened it up. Looked at it for about five seconds and then had to scream, because apparently he’d missed about  _ five hundred things _ while being down with another cold. Among the less important things, a Revolutionary bomb threat at a festival in Spite. Among the more important things? A person of some importance, one Trevor Blaine had briefly become Jack-of-Smiles. During the festival.

Apparently the threat of some anarchists with explosives had paled in comparison to a Black Ribboner with a knife. Bloody typical, that.

What was important about this, though… Frost clicks his pen again. Blaine had turned into Jack  _ somehow _ , during a relatively safe event. And a relatively exclusive event for Spite, from what he’d heard of the situation through a couple contacts who’d actually been there. The net was tightening.

So. Point one: there should’ve been another Black Ribboner at the event, a thrillseeker nicknamed Dream who seemed to have a habit of becoming Jack quite regularly. Suspicion was occasionally cast on him for faking being Jack to get out of things, but he’d pretty much confirmed under interrogation that he was actually becoming the body-hopping serial killer each time, or at least handing his body over to the murderer to get in some cardio.

Frost’s seen Dream run past his house before, pursued by anywhere from two to four people yelling after him. Always a knife in his hands, a wide grin on his face, and a wider grin on his mask. The pattern’s pretty regular.

He takes a sip of coffee, rubs his hands together to try to get back more heat (damn, how he hates being cold), and writes something down on a slip of paper.  _ DREAM USUALLY JACK _ . It goes onto the hastily cleared-off coffee table, towards the upper right.

Onwards to point two. He clicks his pen again. Dream’s normally Jack. Suddenly, someone else at the festival becomes Jack. Trevor Blaine --  _ Techno _ , his nickname would be -- becomes Jack randomly. Dream and Techno seem to be in contact occasionally. Furtive glances. Could just be Black Ribbon stuff. Could be something more, on the other hand.

_ DREAM AND TECHNO IN CONTACT, _ he writes down, or at least he tries to before realizing he’s clicked his pen in by accident. He fixes that mistake, writes it down, puts it on the upper middle end of his coffee table.

“The first conclusion goes like this,” Frost says aloud to nobody in particular before realizing he’s about to start monologuing. He briefly considers  _ not _ doing that, and then decides that it’s not like he has a reputation to ruin yet. “Techno turns into Jack at a festival where Dream is supposed to be in attendance. Dream has a running history of becoming Jack on and off. Dream and Techno are in somewhat tenuous contact. Therefore, Techno went Jack because of Dream.”

He writes that down. Bolded, underlined.  **_TECHNO GONE JACK DUE TO DREAM._ ** Puts it on the coffee table, sweeping the other note scraps so far underneath it. That’s conclusion one, then. The easy part. If he was prosecuting Dream, this would be the end of the case, but he’s no lawyer, and it’s not  _ Dream _ he wants to catch in the act. He’s after the big man. 

Or the small man, or the child, or- well, Jack. Whatever Jack-of-Smiles is. He’s after Jack. That’s the point. He clicks his pen again, twice this time. Back to focus.

What does he know about Jack? Stabby person. Very stabby. Body-hops like a maniac,  _ but _ has been spotted in the same place at two different times before. Frost paces the room and stops as his foot hits a small parcel -- a thin tome on archaeology that smells like death. Purple cover. He picks it up, squinting at it; he doesn’t actually remember what this is, if he’s being entirely honest with himself (and he is).

He sits down on the couch and opens it. A small piece of paper falls out, one that looks like it was torn out of the page of another book. The archaeology text itself seems to be  _ A Theoretical Treatise On The Nadir And Eyelessness _ , which,  _ again _ , he doesn’t remember getting from anywhere. The note doesn’t exactly settle his stomach either; it’s a scrap of paper from another book’s flyleaf, singed at the edges, written in a very sharp but legible hand.

_ My research on this topic turned up no interest. You may well spin it into some kind of story. From one inquirer to another. _

For some reason, his stomach growls when he looks at the note. Well, at  _ first _ it’s just “for some reason,” and then he realizes the page is singed and also smells like rotting meat and  _ eurgh,  _ a  _ Seeker _ sent him this book-

- _ Wait _ .

Frost sits bolt upright, some amount of memory coming back to him. He  _ does _ know why he has this. About half a month ago, he’d been looking through notes on the Forgotten Quarter, specifically on the Cave of the Nadir and the possibility of acquiring irrigo-tinted ink for…  _ something _ . He’s not sure  _ what _ , only that he needed to find it. He’d done some preliminary research and gotten in contact with someone who’d been lurking around the Quarter. They’d said something about dangerous creatures potentially lurking in the depths, handed him the book, and walked away.

One week later he’d published a quick piece of short fiction on the contents of the book, little more than a vague what-if. He’d gotten a handful of moon-pearls from the contract, enough to keep his rent, and  _ also  _ he’d been back in contact with the person he’d met in the Quarter. The  _ Seeker _ he’d met in the Quarter. Scarred-up man. Had said something about…

...Nothing. Blast. He’s still got a bit of irrigo in the brain.

Frost recedes back into the couch again, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He puts the note back in the book, puts the book back down on the ground, and kicks it away from him across the floor. He can’t shake the feeling that there’s something relevant about the guy he’d met in the Forgotten Quarter, but it’s probably not a good idea to dwell on Seekers any longer than he has to. And right now, he really  _ doesn’t _ have to.

So. Dream turns Techno into a Jack somehow, despite the former not being a confirmed attendee at the festival. That means turning into Jack is quite possibly something that can be delayed-action and not happen immediately. He clicks his pen a few more times until he’s reasonably certain that it’s currently in writing position, and then writes  _ JACK PROCESS NOT INSTANT? _ on another piece of paper. He puts it next to the other papers, further to the right, and takes a deep breath.

So, if Dream  _ wasn’t _ at the festival, then that means he gave something to Techno to turn him  _ into _ a Jack. Or, rather, Techno  _ had _ something that would turn him into a Jack when used. Frost picks up the newspaper again and squints at it. They hadn’t managed to stop Techno in the act, and whoever had done so afterwards hadn’t reported it, so that was a bit of a dead end… unless it wasn’t.

_ UNKNOWN WHEN/HOW TECHNO STOPPED BEING JACK _ , he writes down.

“Now we’re getting someplace,” he says. Yeah, that’s right, it’s time to start monologuing again. “As we all know, Jack-of-Smiles can be spotted in multiple places at once, and it’s  _ possible _ for former Jacks to survive with no memory of their time as Jack. In this case, because Dream wasn’t really seen at the festival in Spite, and there’s no timeline for when Techno  _ stopped _ being Jack, we’re lacking information. But I think the fact that we’re lacking information tells us something.”

“The first conclusion was that Techno became a Jack because of Dream. If Dream wasn’t at the festival, that means that Techno can’t have  _ immediately _ become a Jack after Dream turned him into one, so the process is either slow-acting or something else is going on. Since there’s no information on Techno  _ or _ Dream immediately post Jack-ening, I suspect the latter.”

Frost takes a deep breath in. “If Dream wasn’t at the festival, but wanted to ruin it without anybody knowing, someone becoming Jack would pretty well do that for him. I doubt Techno would have agreed to it if he knew what it entailed, which means that…”

_ DREAM TRICKED TECHNO SOMEHOW,  _ he writes out. It doesn’t feel quite important enough to be bolded and underlined, but that’s okay, he’s still talking through all this.

“So Dream somehow tricks Techno into becoming Jack-of-Smiles, and this means that-”

The realization hits him like a stampeding beast. He doesn’t want to say it out loud, so he just writes it down. Underlined and bolded this time, because this isn’t the conclusion he was working towards but it’s still  _ one hell of a conclusion _ .

**_DREAM KNOWS HOW TO BECOME JACK._ **

Frost stares at the note, gears turning in his head faster and faster. Something isn’t adding up here, but he just wants to figure out who Jack is,  _ not _ unravel some conspiracy. Still, he can’t help but feel like he’s walking a tightrope.

“Dream knows how to become Jack-of-Smiles at will. So he makes someone else Jack for him, this one time, probably because he doesn’t want his name associated with the whole affair. Techno doesn’t know that Dream knows how to become Jack, or doesn’t suspect what’s going on happens to correspond to Dream’s history of being Jack. Mild guesswork here, but that could mean that something about becoming Jack-of-Smiles is relatively inconspicuous or subtle. Something that’s not easy for a layman to guess, which would also explain why the case hasn’t been solved by anyone yet.”

_ SMILES CASE IS UNSOLVED _ , he writes, hoping that sort of summarizes his ramble.

“So then… how does Dream turn Techno into a Jack? Is he in contact with a Jack that’s not him? Does someone else in the criminal underbelly of the world do it? What’s the key to becoming Jack-”

His eye catches something in the paper. A blurry photograph of Trevor Blaine, mid-madness as he lunges. The man is holding what appears to be a somewhat shoddy kitchen-knife.

And he’s seen that kitchen knife before. He’s seen it in the hand of someone cackling as they run past his house before, pursued by anywhere from two to four people yelling after him.  _ He’s seen Dream with that exact knife. _ While Dream was  _ Jack _ , no less.

Frost takes a deep breath. “We back up. A month ago, Jack-as-Dream runs through my street, carrying a kitchen knife and pursued by a few other people. Dream is stopped, and goes back to normal.”

He stands up. Clicks the pen. Starts pacing. “One week ago. Dream and Techno are seen briefly discussing something. Most people assume it’s Black Ribbon business. Something changes hands.”

He clicks the pen again, and again, feet pounding the floor (luckily, nobody will notice the sound, it’s not like he has any flatmates to speak of). “And now, yesterday. Techno becomes Jack-of-Smiles in the middle of a festival. There’s a picture of him taken during the carnage. He’s holding the same kitchen knife Dream used as Jack a month ago.”

Forget stampede, this hits him like it’s a train straight to Hell. Not even the Brass Embassy, but directly into the Iron Republic levels of straight to Hell. It’s so  _ simple _ . It’s  _ impossibly _ simple. There’s no other conclusion.

“He’s in the knives.” Frost sits down again, stares at the notes on the table. “Jack-of-Smiles isn’t a body-hopping serial killer at all. It’s a type of knife that makes you kill people.”

Doubt comes in. “How has nobody figured this out yet? We  _ have _ trade relations with Polythreme. Clay Men exist, for God’s sake! Dream’s keeping it a secret, but he’s got ulterior motives, surely  _ some _ plucky detective has figured it out and told the constabulary before, right? How is Jack still even a problem if they have? What am I  _ missing _ ?”

No, okay, he can still work this angle. He picks up another piece of paper, then thinks better of it and sets it -- and the pen -- aside. The shiny brass of the pen taunts him. He shakes his head at it.

“Dream keeps Jack-of-Smiles a secret because he’s a thrill-seeker and doesn’t want the coppers to ruin his fun. Most Jacks permanently lose either their mind or their lives once they stop being Jack; the ones that stay sane and alive don’t have any memory of the event happening. There’s barely enough evidence to keep everything together, and I only managed to solve this case because I saw the same Jack run by my window before it showed up in Techno’s hand.”

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “So it’s assumed that the case isn’t ever going to be well and truly solved, even though it  _ is _ practically solved already. What’s stopping a whistleblower from gumming up the whole works so far?”

The festival. It had been under bomb threat by the Revolutionaries, the gunpowder faction, the people who claimed that the real threat to the proletariat was…

Frost stiffens, then hastily picks up his notes and tosses them in the roaring fire, shoves all the hard work in. Burns the newspaper, too. He runs a hand through his hair, staring at the flames, waiting until every single one of his deductions is little more than wispy ashes.

This was not good. This was  _ extremely _ not good. Sure, he doesn’t have  _ flatmates _ , but  _ neighbors _ could have heard him. He needs to vanish for a few days, get out of the line of fire  _ just in case _ the conclusion he’d just come to was accurate -- because if Jack was the knives,  _ someone was making those knives. _ And someone was  _ ordering _ those knives, and someone was  _ having them shipped to London _ . 

And whoever those people were (and Frost had a sneaking suspicion, too), he did  _ not _ want them knowing he’d just had a breakthrough. They’re going to come after him. Maybe even en force, if this was a whole overarching plot.

He looks over to the book he’d kicked aside. The one with the purple cover. The Forgotten Quarter, he could go there.  _ Devils _ might look for him, but  _ people _ probably wouldn’t, and he doubted this was any sort of  _ literal _ fiendish conspiracy.

Frost stares down at the book, then reaches out and picks it up. Flips over the note from before and clicks his pen one last time.

_ Hey Frost,  
_ _ It’s Frost from the past. Turns out, I’m a really great detective and I found out who Jack was. That was a bad idea for me, my safety, and my stuff. If you’re reading this, don’t do that again. If you don’t remember who Jack is (hopefully you don’t), check the title of this book. _

That would have to do. He tucks the note back in, kicks the book across the floor and under a small footstool (luckily, it’s still visible there, taunting him a little), and tucks his pen back into his pocket. He’s now officially a man on the run… well,  _ sort of _ officially. Nobody’s chasing him yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

The thing that’s bothering him as he heads out the door isn’t the Jack case. Isn’t what Techno’s rampage at the festival meant. Isn’t any sort of city politics at all… well, somehow he gets the feeling it  _ is _ that last part, because the thing is:

He’s got the strangest feeling that  _ he’s done this before. _

**Author's Note:**

> whee!
> 
> anyway. Frost is a Midnighter (a late-game occupation involving being good at being a spy, and also the color irrigo), hence the whole story looping back on itself a bit. we do these things, these things happen. also if you care about FL lore - yes, I know retractable ballpoint pens weren't invented until the 1950s, Frost probably got it from Hell or something. the Devils are just chock-full of anachronisms, what with their fedoras and jazz and whatnot. let the man have a pen.
> 
> Sarc's exceedingly brief cameo is because both he and Frostbyte did a video on the Warden at roughly the same time, and I just think that's neat! seriously, that's the only reason why Seeker Bastard Sarc gets brought up.
> 
> okay! i don't have anything else to say. uh. be gay do minecraft


End file.
